How To Remain Unseen
by 4give4get4sake
Summary: Living in the cupboard under the stairs- yes, there was a door, but the Dursleys had somehow forgotten it- was a small child named Harry Potter, who from the age of one was told each morning through the door to stay in his cupboard and pretend he didn't exist. First the boy became unnoticed, then unseen, and finally, the Dursleys forgot they had ever taken in a child entirely.
1. Chapter 1

**Number Four Privet Drive** : By the time Dudley turned ten Petunia and Vernon Dursley had to admit there was something alarmingly unnatural about the place. Things moved themselves, books and newspapers and clothes, or would get lost and reappear somewhere strange, in the oven or dangling off the tree in the front yard. Food would go missing from the refrigerator. Sometimes dinner would go missing straight off their plates, and they'd stare at the plate, confused, wondering how they could have already finished and why they were still hungry.

And, although they'd never seen or heard another soul besides the three of them, the pervasive, tingling sense that there was _something living in their house_ , whenever Petunia was alone in the kitchen, that awareness in the back of her neck that something was standing directly behind her, maybe just a foot away- she turned around and there was nothing- and that one time that Vernon woke up suddenly, sometime after three in the morning, _knowing_ something malevolent was next to their bed, watching them- his heart sped up, but he kept his eyes fixed firmly on the ceiling, breathing shallowly, until it went away.

They spoke about it in roundabout ways with forced, nervous casualness, knowing that addressing it directly might make the situation altogether, horrifically worse- "I'll need you to go get another gallon of milk, Vernon, I must have forgotten it-" even though Vernon had just watched Petunia unload the groceries and put two gallons of milk in the fridge- "Of course, is there anything else we need while I'm out?" and Vernon made a list with most of the groceries Petunia had just unloaded, but he steadfastly did not allow his brain to notice the repetition; it didn't matter where the milk had disappeared to, or what it was that had taken it, he was a practical man, not a fearful one, so the way to deal with the horror that had set up residence in his home was simply to replace things that disappeared, move back furniture, and when he _knew_ there was something sitting in the fourth chair at the table, sweat and talk loudly about the weather and work and traffic.

Dudley, who had shown promise of growing into a precocious, extroverted child, nowadays spent his time in the house white-faced and nervous, spoke little and only when spoken to, woke up screaming from nightmares but refused to tell Petunia what they were. Children, even Muggle children, always see more than adults, being less practiced at telling themselves what they are seeing. Petunia quickly stopped asking him about his nightmares but instead let him sleep between her and Vernon, for the little protection they gave, whispering, "It's not real, darling, it's not real," wishing the words didn't sound flatly dishonest even to her own ears.

And one of those nights Dudley whimpered, " _It hates me for I have a family, it wants to hurt me_ ," and Petunia quickly covered his mouth and said quickly, "Shh, darling, it's not real," but what she meant was, _don't speak of it._

Once when the ten-year-old walked past the staircase, out of the corner of his eye he saw the outline of a door. When turned to look at it, the wall was solid, and he bit his lip and quickly walked on.

Whatever lived in Number Four, Privet Drive stole all kinds of things, but it loved to steal Dudley's things the most- toys, action figures, posters, books, pens and colors, his new school uniform Vernon had bought him for school in September. Sometimes they would return, hours or days or months later, somehow grotesquely defaced- the pages of the books turned blank, or the face of the action figure twisted into a glare. Sometimes they never returned. Dudley threw out the ruined toys and told Petunia he had lost them, or maybe a friend borrowed them and didn't return them. Petunia smiled tightly and didn't say anything about how he had been losing everything, lately, and he didn't really have any friends, lately.

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 **How To Remain Unseen** : There is a Cloak engineered by one Ignatius Peverell, that has been passed down by his descendants, but the workings are understood by none, and it is the only of its kind. When James Potter died, Albus Dumbledore possessed the cloak. There are demiguise, magical creatures that have the ability to turn invisible at will, whose pelts can be harvested and sewn into cloaks that become slowly opaque over several years of use. There is the Disillusionment Charm, which gives a person the appearance of whatever is directly behind them.

There is also a slightly different class of spells, perhaps not true invisibility, which leaves the person quite visible but simply unnoticeable, one of those millions of details the brain simply filters out. For personal use there is the Notice-Me-Not charm, but wizards have used powerful runic variants of the same type of magic to hide buildings or even entire magical communities from Muggles.

But the accidental magic of children is difficult to classify, difficult to understand; there is little science, or even repeatability, to the extraordinary magic children are able to wield at unpredictable times. Living in the cupboard under the stairs- yes, there was a door, but the Dursleys had somehow forgotten it- was a small child named Harry Potter, who from the age of one was steadfastly ignored as much as possible without being physically neglected, told each morning through the door to stay in his cupboard and pretend he didn't exist. First the boy became unnoticed, then unseen, and finally, Petunia and Vernon Dursley forgot entirely they had ever taken in Lily Potter's orphan son in the first place.

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 **What Type Of Thing Is Harry Potter** : Not given to philosophy, much, any how- still a young one, whatever type of thing it is, it loves to play as types of things as much as it believes itself to be. Being a spook is one of its favorite games, somewhere between a ghost (something left over, stuck in the doorway) and a playful bit of the house, given to making things disappear and playing pranks, although those pranks are maybe less on the light-hearted side of things. Scaring the Dursleys is funny, making fear permanently part of their lives is even funnier.

Harry Potter imagines that it and the cupboard are somehow related, because it knows the Dursleys can't see the cupboard, which means- whatever it means. Harry Potter isn't quite sure what would happen if it left the house, but it never has, and even in its most adventurous moods, it never feels the impulse to go outside.

Although sometimes Harry Potter thinks itself to be imaginary, it does enjoy doing things Dursleys do such as food and pissing and it's not quite sure whether it feels the need to do those things because of the type of thing it is or because it's copying the Dursleys. Harry Potter despises the Dursleys, of course, despises and hates them, but it also knows in the back of its mind that it's jealous even of their boring, meaningless, terrified lives, and so it watches everything they do with wide eyes and copies them, from perusing Vernon's newspaper to putting on Petunia's makeup in the bathroom mirror.

Dudley, of course, is the one Harry Potter despises and hates and is jealous of the most, and so Harry Potter follows Dudley around the house and steals his food off his plate and pulls his hair and at night it slides into his bed and whispers mean things into his ear. Harry Potter doesn't want to be anything like Dudley, the fat, cowardly, friendless ten-year-old, and yet Harry Potter never could even if it wanted to, never could be a proper boy with a mother and a father, and it never wanted to, but it wants to ruin it for Dudley as best as it can, for a tight, painful reason that it understands very well.

Sometimes Harry Potter plays to be a fourth Dursley, eating at the table and watching television and sleeping in the third bedroom instead of in its cupboard. The Dursleys carefully avoid looking toward certain parts of the room, and it cheerfully chats to Vernon and Petunia and Dudley, knowing they don't hear a word. It calls Vernon "Dad" and Petunia "Mum" and dresses up in Dudley's clothes. It's a funny game, but it's obvious Harry Potter is not and never will be a Dursley.

Harry Potter needs the Dursleys to survive, it knows, what would it do if it couldn't steal everything needs from them? Sometimes Harry Potter thinks how easy it would be to start playing slightly worse pranks on them, maybe cause an accident, someone trips just when they're walking down the stairs, maybe somebody leaves the gas leaking out of the stove and doesn't notice. Or simply an upended ashtray, a house up in flames, cupboard and all.

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 **Self-Fulfilling Prophecies** : If there's a place that's actively helped complete more prophecies than any other, it's the bustling, busy office of The Daily Prophet, which employs more Seers than any other business in Magical Britain. As leaked research from the Department of Mysteries (published by the Daily Prophet) informs us, whether or not prophecies are completed highly depends on whether the prophecy- or some distorted version- gets back to the ears of those it pertains to, and before the Daily Prophet began employing Seers to get their news first, a majority of prophecies would end up unheard, and unfulfilled. Prophecies, like all knowledge, depend on being known to really affect anything.

It was not long after their employment of Sybill Trelawney that she gave the prophecy about You-Know-Who and The Boy-Who-Lived, and of course it ran the front page- one with the power to defeat the Dark Lord! The war could end! A little over a year later, the Dark Lord sought to eliminate the threat, and that night at the (supposedly Secret) Potter house, both members of the prophecy disappeared.

A mystery, of course, what happened, all quite mysterious, and for whatever reason the public found it difficult to fix their minds on that night at the Potter house (where was it again?) but the Prophet spun a tale of a Betrayal, a Mother's Love, and a Killing Curse Rebound that, with the curious fog around the true events of Halloween, quickly took that place in the public mind between legend and history where everyone has forgotten why they believed it but yet know it to be true. Like all stories in that place between legend and history, the characters involved became timeless and intangible, and by the time Harry Potter is eleven, most everyone has forgotten to wonder whatever has happened to him (as well as What-Was-His-Name, the other member of the prophecy, whose dead body, come to think of it, no one has actually seen). The Daily Prophet had given birth to another Harry Potter, one larger than life, more than human, the Savior of the Wizarding World, and this new Harry Potter- ever present in history books, plastered across posters, written about in children's essays, the Harry Potter of the prophecy- perhaps could be said to have a better claim on the name than whatever is living in The Cupboard Under The Stairs, 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey.


	2. Chapter 2

**Number Four Privet Drive** : Years later, the neighbors' eyes would slide past Number 4- not because they couldn't see it.

"No, there was definitely only one little boy- oh, I can't remember his name, he didn't play with the kids much, I wouldn't say he had any friends in the neighborhood- but he didn't look anything like that, no, no scar or anything, he was a bit heavy for a ten-year-old, not too much to say about him, always went home straight from school. I'm sure there was never anyone else."

"And you're sure you don't-"

"Oh, I don't remember at all," she says quickly, blood quickly leaving her face, "but it was awful, quite horrible, all three of them, we could all hear them even all the way down the block, woke us up it did in the middle of the night, and we went down there but it was too late to do anything, God preserve their souls, and I can't tell you really any details, it's like a blank space in my memory what I saw, but really I'm glad for it, there are some things just too unnatural to remember, _honestly_ , sir..."

The Headmaster gravely thanks the woman, bows, and continues down the road; one block down is Number 4. He walks up the drive, reaches the door, and knocks twice. After a few moments, he slips his wand from his pocket into his sleeve, whispers something indecipherable, and turns the doorknob, which opens. He enters.

The Headmaster searches the house methodically. First the three bedrooms- under the beds, in the closets, behind the curtains, finally a _Homonium Revelio_ , just in case- and the living room. Then the bathrooms and the kitchen and the garage. Finally the attic and the coat closet and the cupboard under the stairs. All so neat and empty he might think no one ever lived at Number 4.

What happened to the three Dursleys? He hasn't been able to find out- from the neighbors, from the police department, from public records- what's happened to the bodies, if they are in fact dead. And what happened to Harry Potter? Had he disappeared at the same time as the rest of the family? It was starting to seem like Harry might never have even lived at Number 4. Were the two unnatural disappearances related? The Headmaster prefers to think of it as _disappearances_ as opposed to _attacks_ , and tries to keep the last question from fully forming in his mind: if something attacked them, is it still in the house?

He doesn't want to bring in the Ministry if he doesn't have to (although this is clearly more than a Muggle matter). There are many things that the Ministry (not to mention their unhealthy information pipeline to the Daily Prophet) would do that would not help the Headmaster's plans. There are certain hidden things that should remain unseen. He won't involve the Ministry for now, but he'll leave a fireway to 4 Privet Drive, just in case further investigation is needed.

The _unnaturalness_ , as the neighbor had put it, of the place has already begun to affect the Headmaster, and he wipes his forehead, thinking he is too old to be intimidated like a Muggle by a mystery he hasn't figured out. He looks at his white fingers: he can't shake off the sense that he's stayed in this house too long, and also- now that he's gotten himself nervous- the ever increasing sense that there is something behind him. He turns in a half-circle, putting the door behind him, and the sense persists- he can't look in all directions at once, and whichever direction he is not looking, he thinks there might be-

He casts the human revealing spell again, and just to be sure, a battery of every other sort of revealing spell he knows. They show only one person: his own. Finally, after holding his breath for a moment too long, he aims his wand at the fireplace, which bursts into flame, and tosses in a handful of white powder from a bag in his pocket. "Hogwarts," he says clearly, and steps in.

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 **How To Remain Unseen** : As soon as the Headmaster returned to his office, he slipped a mysterious Cloak over his head and went upon several errands (brought to my awareness from a very reliable second-hand account):

First, a visit to his old friend Nicholas Flamel.

Second, a visit to Gringotts Bank.

Third, a visit to Godric's Hollow.

Fourth, after returning to his office, a series of scrying spells, which gave quite unintelligible results.

Fifth, after removing the Cloak, a request to his Potions Professor to visit him in his office when the Professor found the time.

Sixth, after again ducking under the Cloak, through the castle to the Owlery, one of the tallest parts of the castle.

Seventh, on the way back, a detour through the third-floor corridor.

Eighth, to the bathrooms. Even Headmasters have biological demands.

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 **What Type Of Thing Is Harry Potter** : the Sorting Hat asks itself.

An unrelated question: _What_ is the difference between _prophecy_ and _choice_? In other words, what's the difference between what-you're-going-to-do and what-you-would've-done-anyway? Plenty of wizards, in an absurd quest for free will, waste away their lives attempting to navigate the world while avoiding some prophecy or another to such an extent that they live their lives by the prophecy in a sort of negative-space relief.

Perhaps the fact that the Hat itself has a bit of the Prophetic power makes it harder to look at it from one side or the other. When it examines a child for the house it'd do best in it doesn't think it's Seeing anything that anyone else couldn't, if they simply paid attention to details and had a bit of imagination. Pay attention to the details of the child's mind, pay attention to the details elsewhere, then fork your mind into four and imagine making each of four decisions. One feels better than the others. (There's always only one answer to how things go.)

The funny thing is, Harry Potter is mostly imaginary. How unusual! The Sorting Hat is no stranger to finding imaginary future-people and imaginary past-people in people's heads, but has never encountered a biological one.

The Sorting Hat forks its mind into four and places each of four Harry Potters in one of four houses. It watches the four Harry Potters grow up, year after year, till they reach the biological age they can realistically play adulthood. It watches them recognize the evil and destroy the evil. "You'd do well in Gryffindor." / "Slytherin will play to your strengths." / "Your destiny is in Hufflepuff." / "Ravenclaw will give you the tools you need."

Harry Potter closes its eyes tightly, letting its legs swing over the Headmaster's desk.

The Sorting Hat follows the paths to their ends, then refolds its mind and sighs. There was nothing real in what it saw, which is to say, wholly predictive. Four paths and none of the four distinguished in any way, each two-sided like a coin, one side like it went this way and the other side like it never could have in any possible world. Two-sided like a Mobius strip.

"You have a good amount of... resentment," the Sorting Hat finally says.

Harry Potter doesn't respond. It's felt the Hat filing through its head, categorizing, reordering, playing card-counted games through to all possible spreads. It is a vaguely pleasant sensation.

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 **Self-Fulfilling Prophecies** : The Headmaster was like one of those riddles of interlocked assertions, I think to myself in a moment of frustration, trying to puzzle through the list of the Headmaster's doings from the week before school began.

Harry Potter was the important part, of course, but appeared nowhere in the riddle. How... baffling.

After spending a solid hour in the bathrooms, the Headmaster returned to his office, where he had a short conversation with the Potions Professor about the third floor corridor, and a longer conversation with the Potions Professor and the rest of his staff about the third floor corridor, and an even longer conversation about educational policy in the upcoming school year which was less interesting than the first two. He then dismissed his staff, practiced his beginning-of-year speech in the mirror a few times, chattered nonsensically with his bird for a few minutes, and went to bed.

Maybe the Headmaster is not important.

The hardest part of the Prophecy is to wrap my head around is " _Neither can live while the other survives._ " A two-part riddle, it always flips me around whenever I play out one side to its end. On the other hand, there is the simple interpretation- which is, to all appearances, what ended up happening. But every time I try to accept the simple interpretation and put the Prophecy to rest, my gut finds something incomplete about it.

It reminds me of one of the first riddles I read, by Lewis Carroll:

(a) None of the unnoticed things, met with at sea, are monsters.

(b) Things entered in the log, as met with at sea, are sure to be worth remembering.

(c) I have never met with anything worth remembering, when on a voyage.

(d) Things met with at sea, that are noticed, are sure to be recorded in the log.

It's a neat interlocked riddle, a simple loop. It's fairly quick to sort it out and find the answer. When I reach the answer I'm always satisfied with it. It's only when I reread the puzzle that I'm left with the gut feeling that something's been left out.

I rearrange the Headmaster's doings once more. The Cloak, the Mirror, and the Sorcerer's Stone. Godric's Hollow. The bathrooms.

Maybe the Headmaster has no idea what he's doing.

Alternatively, maybe Headmaster had wanted events at Godric's Hollow to have gone the other way.


End file.
